Released from Solitary Confinement
by Shiggity Shwa
Summary: Vala gives birth in three different storylines. Only chapter 3 deals with Atlantis. Each chapter is AU. Part 7 of 9.
1. Between Seven and Six

Released from Solitary Confinement

Chapter 1

Between Seven and Six

It is for the want of an apple. That's all it is.

They're attacking the mountain, the natives from P3X-whatever, she ate a single apple and now they are attacking Cheyenne Mountain. Teams 1 through 15 are out exploring of course and she doesn't really know how many remaining teams there are. That's how she ends up waddling through the concrete corridors stained red with an alert that won't shut up, holding the bottom of her stomach and telling herself that she's not in labor, rather it's the cupcakes, those delightful little spiderweb cupcakes she hoarded the rest of and has been snacking on since Friday.

There are more tremors, more quaking and she wonders why the other teams haven't been called back. A terrible thought hits her, what if they've wrecked the stargate? What if they've disabled it because those horrible bramble throwing morons have tried to engage it. Another pain strikes through her stomach and she stops, her hand slapping the wall.

It's a bruise, just a bruise from where she hit the doorframe.

"Ms. Mal Doran," General Landry calls to her, and she's relieved because she was working her way down to the gate room where he would be situated if there was an attack. He hurries over to her, placing a hand on her back. "You alright?"

"I'm tired," she tries to grin at him, alluding back to their conversation not an hour ago, but when she tries to move off the wall, her breath hitches and her lungs don't expand.

His face is close to hers and rather craggy in the siren light. "Are you—"

"Just a cramp," she laughs it off, but it comes more out like a huff, and perhaps she should go to see Dr. Lam. "What's going on?"

"Natives from the Apple Planet—" the infamous Apple Planet as they've taken to calling it. Some of the other teams call her Eve until Mitchell coiled up on them. "—they're trying to enter through our Stargate."

"What about the other teams?" She lets him take her arm from the wall and walk with her, when they miss the turn to the gate room she assumes they're going to see Lam.

"We've diverted them to the Apple Planet." Walks calmly with her while soldiers jog by, guns drawn. The alarm finally stops blaring but the auxiliary generator hasn't clicked on to bring the lights back yet. "They can only hold a stargate open for 38 minutes, the second that's up they're going to get bombarded with fifteen teams."

"General." A man jogs towards them and gives her an expression like he knows she's Eve in this whole mess. It's Mitchell's fault if she thinks hard enough about it, he was too good at sex and this was bound to happen. "We need you, they've found a way to enable the stargate."

"You're kidding me."

"No Sir, Walter is matching them for now, but if they get in—"

"They're not getting in." His eyebrows and mouth falter as he turns to her because she's going to be abandoned again. "Can you get yourself to Carolyn?"

"Yes," she nods standing on her own, her hand rubbing the area on her stomach she smashed into the frame.

"Vala, if I hear you didn't—"

"It's nothing I haven't done before." Slaps her hand against his shoulder a few times as she continues her gait down the hall. Doesn't turn to wave them goodbye as they take off in the opposite direction.

She's going to murder Cameron. Bludgeon him in his handsome face because she told him this would happen, but he just had to get in one more exploration with the boys, and Samantha, before the baby comes. Does she get to go off-world and dig around in the sand for useless artifacts and pretty trinkets, no she gets to try and navigate a stairwell down two floors in almost pitch black because the elevators are out of commission.

Sidesteps her way down to the first landing, the building trembling as much as her bare feet relying on tactile instead of visual aid. At the first landing she inhales deeply setting off another the pain firing up her back and sides. As she's about to tell herself it's indigestion or another cramp, liquid drips from between her legs creating another obstacle for her to get through down one and a half more floors.

"Are you kidding me, baby?" Irate with a fetus and it sounds so stupid but Cameron's not here, the General's not here, and there's no one left to be upset with. "Do you want to be delivered or not because if I slip, we're both done for."

Another quake hits just as her foot touches down on the next level. She hugs the guardrail and slopes downward on the floor her knees landing a bit harshly. Bits of dust puff down from the ceiling and between bricks in the wall and the mountain might groan louder than her. She hasn't been timing the contractions, but it's only been about an hour since the attack began, so there must be plenty of time.

More soldiers run by the next floor door and she shambles over, opening it yelling after them, but they've disappeared like all of the men in her life, and Samantha. Doesn't want to do this alone again, cannot do this alone again without having the support she was relying on. They were supposed to do this as a team, he promised they'd do this as a team.

Picks the first step carefully estimating about ten before the landing and then ten more before Lam's level. She can make it, just a little jaunt, a tiny brisk walk to the park, like when Cameron took her to the park, the one with the large fountain and bought her ice cream, then let her eat his too.

He turned towards her on the bench, wearing a t-shirt and a pair of cargo shorts and rubbed her stomach through the sundress she wore, her one leg kept raising and tapping him on his knee until he took the hint and started to rub around her swollen ankles.

"What are you thinking?" He questioned watching all the other couples with children, running around sticking their hands into the fountain, screaming for ice cream, the parents chasing after them before they drown in a few inches of water for want of a shiny quarter.

"That I want more ice cream."

He quirked an eyebrow at her and chuckled but became quickly silent. "Ask me what I'm thinking."

"What are you—"

"I think we should get married."

Glanced at him over her sunglasses to gauge his seriousness and when he only grinned foolishly at her she sighed, "Cameron."

"I think this baby is the greatest thing that's ever happened to us." Her dress rumples around her stomach as he rubs and coos to their baby.

"I've been married four times before, and each time it ended with my husband trying to kill me."

Grasps her hand, sticky with melted ice cream and stares her in the eye, completely nonplussed by her amount of previous marriages. "I promise to never kill you."

"No, Cameron."

"Then just live with me, even if it's just for the first six weeks." He kisses off some of the vanilla ice cream from between her fingers. "So we can get this parenting thing down together."

"And what would Ariel have to say about this?"

"Oh Princess, I broke up with her the minute you started having fever dreams about cupcakes."

"Yeah?"

"Oh yeah," and he leans over to steal a kiss, and she lets him, sticky and wet and hot and she tastes vanilla when she licks his lips. He fixes one of her pigtails, and lets his hand linger on the side of her face. "I knew I needed that kind of crazy in my life."

At the second landing her knees give away. Partly because the contraction is stronger, ripping through her and making her muscles weak and partly because the tremor in the building is so grand that part of the wall caves in blocking a large portion of the stairs downward. If she wasn't pregnant with a very impudent child she would be able to squeeze through the rubble, but she's far to big now.

Staying on her hands and knees she pulls herself away from the guardrail, which threatens to collapse, and into the corner which appears, in the dim light, to still have most of the structural integrity.

"Alright you," she jabs at her stomach hoping to get the baby in on the plan as well. "I promise you all the breastmilk your little stomach can handle if you hold off until someone finds us."

As an answer she has another roaring contraction.

The pain is more excruciating than she remembers with Adria, but she had the Will of the Ori in her and they probably did some ancient voodoo to lessen her pain. She's crowning, she's brought a hand down to try and assess the situation the best she can without another set of eyes down there and knows that this child is intent on being born between level six and level seven.

The tremors and quakes stopped a few minutes ago, became less constant and then stopped all together, but she's too smart to hold out hope that someone might help her because she has the very best luck in the world unless it's her relationships or her children.

Another stab spikes in her side and up her back and she shouts out, bearing down with her body and panicking over how to cut the cord, she's not in her BDUs she doesn't have a field knife. The next contraction takes her mind off that worry and she's afraid she might pass out because she's getting lightheaded, and hot, and the air is very thin and dusty. She shouts through the pain and huffs back into the corner.

"Vala?" A voice calls to her through the dust curling around the emergency lights. The second shout of her name is more frantic. "Vala!"

"I'm here." Waves a hand through the dust clearing her vision a bit and listens to the beautiful melody of boots hitting the stairs with speed, they slip on the first landing and then she hears them start to skip steps.

And then he's right there, like he promised, a large gash in his cheek and far dirtier than her. "Oh Thank God." he slides on his knees across the landing.

"I'm going to kill you." It's not even a threat anymore. Her hand crunches against his shoulder as another contraction rakes through her.

"Are you okay? Is the baby?"

"You promised me, Cameron."

"What's going on down—" Peeks under the dress and then quickly lowers the hem back down. "Holy shit. Alright. Okay."

"You promised."

"I did, and I'm here." He rolls up the skirt of her dress resting it on her legs and situates his hands between her legs. "You've got the head out, you need to push, I'll guide the shoulder."

"Don't drop them."

"I'm not going to drop them."

"I didn't get this far for you to drop them."

"Just listen for once and push."

She'd argue more with him, but at that moment another contraction hits and she rides the wave of pain, pushing until she can't breathe, until she feels the pressure release from her pelvis, until she hears crying.


	2. Dependent

_A/N: Just a heads up this chapter gets a little dark._

Released from Solitary Confinement

Chapter 2

Dependent

It is not her firstborn. That's all it is.

She always wondered what her firstborn would have been like. She assumes a girl, a very precious little girl whose hair she would do up in all types of baubles and barrettes, in pigtails and little braids so when she played outside by the sandy river shore, or in the garden helping her weed out the vegetables, she wouldn't get too dirty. Her eyes would have been brown like his, but she loved his eyes once, found his eyes as a slave on the block and pleaded to him without a word. He saved her from hard labor, saved her from being mistreated and beaten and abused, until he did so himself. Bought her as a replacement for his wife who died of an illness he refused to speak of while she was pregnant with a son.

She told him she was pregnant while he was in lockup for public indecency. Despite marrying her, and sleeping with her each night, and having sex with her whenever he pleased because she 'owed' him, and she always felt it strange how the word owe is so similar to the word own, despite the basics of treating her like a wife, dressing her and making her cook for him and take care of the home, he never loved her. Never loved her enough to properly care for her, not like his first wife, his true love.

All of her marriages have been acts of commerce, not love. She's been sold twice and doesn't understand how it happened either time, just up and scooped and beaten until she complied. She's been a slave three times and had her own slaves for twenty. As Qetesh she was pregnant multiple times, so numerous it was extraordinary that she can carry a child to full term.

When husband number three was released from the drunk tank the next morning he came home and promptly beat her, not just hit her, and she ran down the stairs and out of the house cradling her stomach, the only human who has ever been on her side. She ran through the farmers' fields and used the moon to guide her into the forest, hoping to make it to the next village, but policemen with horses will always win. She wasn't locked up, merely returned to her husband who hit her once more and told her to fix dinner.

The next morning, when he no longer smelled of ale, he rapped at her door gently and apologized to her, hung his head and cried crocodile tears onto her thin blanket, then he presented her with little silver baby booties, ones he was saving for his son, and held his hand over her stomach and she knew then that this baby would never feel the pain she did, as a mother it was her job to protect it in a way no one had ever done for her.

The maidens find her on a viewing deck. She tries to scurry down an opposite hallway still holding onto the idea that she can get off this ship and have the baby back at the SGC in the bed where she lay and listen to Earth music before Daniel yelled at her. They would congratulate her and coo over the baby, over her beautiful blue-gray eyes and when she hollered for attention they would call her Vala's daughter. They would care for her and her daughter because despite no one at the SGC really liking her, it was a better place than here, a better place than with the religious zealots.

But the Prior blocks the corridor and declares the Orici on its way. The maidens rush her back to her room, Tomin glues himself to the group sometime during their hallway scurrying and before she knows what's happening she has three different women telling her to push and she tries to refuse, tries to keep the baby safe inside her for as long as she can.

Tomin lays his head by hers on the pillow and whispers words of encouragement to her, how she's ushering in a new age for the Ori and supplying them with the greatest gift he could evet ask for. It isn't until after the baby is born that she understands that 'them' doesn't refer to him and her and the baby they're supposed to raise happily together, but the Ori who used her as a trojan horse to break the rules. She threatens her entire galaxy by being unable to rid herself of the child before it is born.

She pushes not because three maidens tell her to, or because Tomin's soft words rekindle their love for each other, she had been betrayed by him too often and trusts him just about as much as everyone else on the ship, but because her body demands it. She follows the natural functions and thinks of drinking the elixir when with her third husband, when the cramps seized her, much stronger in pain, and she knew it's because she at ended a life instead of birthing it. He blamed her, hit her, held her down when her body and mind already ached, and she plunged a knife into his neck. His blood covered her, just as her blood and their blood did, and she sobbed reddened and wet and alone.

A neighbor helped her seek amnesty, lent her money to get her to a religious house, who then got her off the planet. It took her time to recover, and she trusted no one. Earned her way through thieving, stealing, swindling and selling. Flying stolen cargo ships until they blew out and she needed a new one, then she used her own body for reparation, because it was only her body at that point, not a husband's, not Qetesh's, and not harboring a life that depended on her.

No one depended on her and perhaps that was for the best.

The baby wails before it's fully born, she screams on the last push and feels something inside of her tear, something that shouldn't have and perhaps it's because she held her in too long, or perhaps it's of the sacrifice of her sister, or the dozens of siblings Qetesh evacuated, but she puts aside the pain, sits up in bed and asks for her daughter.

To hold her, to feed her, to be rewarded for the last ten months of constantly putting someone else's needs before her own, but the maidens give her a sour look and take the child away as she shouts and more blood drenches the bedsheets.

Tomin leaves with her daughter. Her daughter, his house, and she is left alone once again in her own blood and she isn't surprised at herself, just finds it interesting how cyclical life is.

And no one depends on her again and perhaps that is for the best.


	3. The Dress

_A/N: I apologize that this chapter took so long to get posted, I sort of lost heart with this series. I'm going to try to finish it (as I have chapters 1 and 2 for stories 8 and 9 finished). I also assume readers will want a tenth story as there are a lot of loose ends._

Released from Solitary Confinement

Chapter 3

The Dress

It is not the Orici. That's all it is

"Hello?" She knocks at the closed door on somewhat of a hybrid ship, the whites and blues from the Ori, but the fleshiness of a Wraith. "Can someone tell me what I'm meant to do? I don't suppose you'd want to keep me locked away until I actually give birth?"

Then again, maybe they do because if word of mouth means anything they've probably been warned about her slyness and penchant for escaping.

Staying here indefinitely isn't the part that's making her antsy, it's knowing the birthing isn't too far off. The stun from the Ori weapon seems to have jumped the baby's gun a bit. She does the best she can to ignore the pain flowing through her side, circling around her back, and tries not to notice when she feels the baby's position shift. She will not give birth on an Ori ship again.

They will not take this child.

"I'm also feeling a bit peckish in case you wanted to offer the mother of the Orici any finger foods while she's waiting to give birth to your new leader." She's not hungry at all, but she needs someone to get into this room, so she can get out of it. The control panel already sits in pieces, wires against wires and she can't break through. She refuses to give up. She refuses to panic.

The Ori will not take this child.

Rest through the night is difficult to find, her back is starting to tense up with the impending birth. There's a hotness at her hips and when she wakes from the few hours of sleep she managed to capture, the pain has increased to a barely tolerable level. Her water hasn't broken yet and that's her only failsafe, she can contain the child until she's able to get off the ship, she's sure of it.

Doesn't expect anyone to come for her, no one did last time and although the circumstances have changed, although she does have people who care about her, getting her back may not be their main goal, she doesn't even know if anyone on Atlantis survived the attack. Her mind refuses to land on that situation and she flops over on her other side wishing there was a big burly arm to give her back some support. Instead she jams a pillow between her legs.

Her eyes snap open a few moments later at a whoosh of the door. The room they've kept her in is eerily similar to her mother of the Orici chamber last time around, a big bountiful bed, and not much else. A dress flutters across her legs and a fellow, he shares features with a Prior and with a Wraith the pale skin and tattoos, the little diagrams scratched into his face.

"You will change into the ceremonial gown."

She leans up on her arm, her stomach piling against her thighs and the baby jittering around. "The blue dress again? I'm more comfortable in my—"

"You will change into the ceremonial gown or there is no reason that this child need not be severed from you now."

"Right, I'll wear the dress then."

She does wear the dress, but uses it to her advantage, pulls it on over her BDU pants, because if they ever force her into a birthing position, having to fight to get the pants off her might give her the time she needs to escape. The back of her dress is unstitched and the material falling slack as her bump is no longer hanging prominent around her mid section but drooping lower around her waist. The pain is still moderate but not extreme, she can still walk, can still run, can still take out an unwitting guard she flashes a bare shoulder to under the premise of him helping her with the back of the dress, which is exactly what she does.

Punches him once in the face, which is stupidly uncovered by any armor, he falters a bit on his feet and she smashes her elbow back into his nose. He gets a fist off on her, but it barely connects and in the topple of his move she gains control of the staff and blasts him in the face. It looks like meatloaf and she tries not to vomit.

"See," she turns, the dress sliding a bit on her one shoulder. The first real contraction blows through her and she jabs the staff to the ground to maintain her posture. "Mama, told you she would get us out of here, and she's doing an excellent job, so if you could possibly hold off on being born until—"

The door to her room opens and another guard enters. She quickly disperses of him, another blast to the face, while she shouts through the contraction. Huffing and slowly motoring over the smooth floor, the clank of the staff echoing. Another contraction swiftly rips through her and at the end she feels water soaking through her pants.

"Are you trying to be like your father?" She leans against the doorway, stretching out her back, the staff uprighted beside her, and her free hand fumbling to get free of the pants. Undoes the buttons and zipper letting the dampen mess fall from her legs as she shimmies out of them.

Two more guards run at the door and perhaps they're so surprised at the mess, the blood, the water, their smoking-faced comrades, that they don't attack her immediately giving her a chance to whack one upside the face with the heavy end of the staff, the other aims for her and she rolls her eyes, like the mother of the Orici is in any danger. She blasts him without regard and turns her attention towards the unconscious fellow on the ground.

"I hate it here. I hate this place. I hate what you did to me last time. I hate this stupid bloody dress." With each sentence she hits the body of the guard ensuring he wouldn't be following her slowly crawl down the hallway.

As she inhales, her chest heaving through another contraction, through the exercise of possibly bashing a man to death, she hears footsteps of more approaching guards and her hand flips the staff expertly pointing the weapon through the doorway waiting for one of them to approach her.

Their weapons are drawn, but they're not in Ori uniforms, instead in BDUs, and their heights differ largely and she's a bit ashamed it took her this long to recognize them.

"Oh thank God." Drops the staff and sinks to the floor beside it, piling in her recently discarded pants and the lush trim of her blue dress. Wincing, she places a hand over her stomach and cries out.

"Damn, Lil' Mama, you laid them out." Ronon hands his gun to Daniel who cocks his head while analyzing the weapon. He moves his hands, warm and capable, underneath her arms and helps her back to her feet. "How long do we have."

"If you're referring to whatever is going down on the ship, I've got no idea." He hands cradle her stomach as she swoops forward, the pressure, the familiar pressure. "If you're asking about the baby, less than a few minutes."

"Okay, so we're having the baby here." Just as easily has he picks her up, he sets her back down into the frump of her dress and fixes the material falling off her shoulder. His hand pets the side of her face, his thumb tracing her lips and she's grateful for him, that he's here willing to help her, most importantly his tranquility in the most disastrous of situations is infectious and one look in his eyes she knows he's there for her and knows she can do this.

"Vala, you can't have the baby here." Daniel on the other hand has always been like a teapot left on the stove too long, too hot to handle, too steaming to calm down. He takes a knee to the side of her, and she watches Ronon's eyebrow crisp at the intrusion. "It's not safe, we need to get you back onto the _Daedalus_ , there's a doctor, medical equipment and—"

"Danny Boy, take a breath." Ronon's hand claps to his back effectively ending his sentence. "Baby's gonna be born where it wants to be born."

"Besides, you're a doctor, aren't you Darling?"

"There you go," Ronon adds with a giant grin.

"No, no, no. I am not delivering this baby." Daniel rocks back on his feet, giving Ronon his gun back when he gestures for it.

"Of course not, I'm the one crowning."

Their arguing pauses as she flinches, the pain ripping through her again, a little lower, and a little more pressure than before. She braces her foot on Ronon's thigh and he holds it in place, rubbing her arm gently.

Daniel appears to be unhappy with the exchange and sets the staff against the wall. "Okay." He agrees unbuttoning his jacket and dropping it to the floor. "I'll deliver it."

She's about to politely decline, although she does still appreciate take charge Daniel, when footsteps, running, around the corner before any of them are prepared for more guards. Ronon leans over her, his gun drawn and Daniel fumbles to raise the staff correctly.

"Just me." Sam lifts her hands and both men lower their weapons. Daniel rolls his eyes and Ronon quietly questions if she's still doing okay. As she nods he tucks a greasy strand of her hair behind her ear. "I've tried to set a bomb in the control room, but the make up of the ship is biomechanic and it—" she pauses staring at the state of the room and then at them. "You're having the baby."

She nods and squeezes as hard as she can against Ronon's hand, her feet brace against him and push her back into the wall.

"Okay, Daniel, Ronon secure our position and find a way back to the rings." Sam flutters her hands at the men, Daniel shuffles to the doorway and Ronon checks for her approval before switching positions with Sam. As the men disappear down the corridor, Sam lifts the hem of her dress. "Okay, well you've done most of this yourself."

"So I gathered," she groans, pushing down through the contraction. Third times the charm.

The third time.

"A few more should do it, Vala." With forethought, Sam grabs for a knife hanging off the side of her leg then stretches across the floor to retrieve something else. "Don't do it yet."

"Not me really running the show here." The pressure and the pain, the ribboning of both, stab through her stomach and she wants the baby safe, but she wants the baby out now. Pushes down as Sam returns with Daniel's discarded jacket and catches the baby as it topples out of her.

Sam laughs almost in tears. She laughs completely in tears, and the baby makes gagging cries.

Everything is perfect until an Ori staff blasts them from the doorway.


End file.
